3 Tips to Keep You Going When You Feel Like Giving Up

I’ve been writing this same book for over a year now. To be honest, I’ve written about 5 pages.

Like many people, I struggle with the same phobia that holds a lot of us back. I start something I’m truly passionate about and then in the midst of working I start doubting myself.

"Will people like this? 
"Will anyone support my vision,? 
"I’m not educated enough to make this happen."

I have a bachelor’s degree, but since it wasn’t an Ivy League I tend to use that against myself.

I know I have a story that can impact lives, but my mind defeats me every time I start. I would rather settle for mediocrity and complain because I can’t get past my negative thoughts.

If you’ve ever felt like this, I want you to know there is a light at the end of the tunnel and you can reach your goals.

Here are the four things I had to understand to break through my mindset barrier and finally complete my book.

understand The beauty is in the journey.

Every flower that blossoms once started from a seed. Imagine your idea as a seed and the end result, once accomplished, is your beautiful flower. Every day that you get up and take an action towards your goal is like watering your little seed.

Your flower cannot blossom without water. And you have to do the work if you want to get to the end result in your dreams.

It won't be quick and easy but it will be worth it.

Related post: The High-Achiever's 7-Step Guide to Setting Crystal Clear Goals

visualize Your success

When you hit a challenge in your goal-getting journey, it might be difficult to see yourself as ever reaching that goals. Creating a vision board can help bring the gap between where you are and where you’re going in your mind.

A vision board is a great way to visualize yourself at every step of your upcoming journey and give you a tangible image of what it feels like to accomplish you goal.

Related Post: 7 Techniques to Visualize Your Goals and Dreams in Under 5 Minutes

Realize When You’re Making Excuses, Not Progress

Sometimes we get so focused on making progress that we become distracted from our initial goal. I do this all the time.

At one point I found myself registering to every FREE event I can get my hands on. I woke up one morning and asked myself

"Why am I going to these events?”
”Do they add value to my life?”
”Can this specific event help me achieve my goal?"

After answering no to everything I realized I was distracted from my end goal.

Related post: Are You Over Planning? It's Time to Start Accomplishing Your Goals

What are some tools that you use to keep going?

Want To Start Planning Your Vision Board Party? 

1. Download the FREE vision board party planning checklist.

2. Craft your inspiring vision board workshop talk with our FREE High Impact Storytelling Journal Prompts. 

3. Plan, promote & host your first (or next) professional & profitable vision board workshop with our signature course, Sold Out Vision Board Parties.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cyrene is a fun and accomplished workshop facilitator, learning and development guru and Human Resources professional. Being at the helm of Thrive Lounge has been a long-time dream. Through vision board workshops she plans to accomplish two-way learning. Sharing her vast years of knowledge to motivate and encourage others; while simultaneously getting the reward of great energy, ideas and questions to ponder back from each group. A super win-win. Please join our Thrive Lounge community so you too can benefit!

How To Secure Excellent Speakers For Your Vision Board Party: Part II

In How To Secure Excellent Speakers For Your Vision Board Party: Part 1, we spoke about the importance of mapping out your ideal event before you even approach an event speaker.

Once you’ve gathered all your research, it’s time to make the leap and email one of the prospective speakers you listed.

Part two walks you through exactly how to write an email that will get noticed and responded to.

What Information To Include In Your Email

Who You are

Unless you’re a household brand like freakin’ Oprah, you’re going to have to let the potential speaker in on who you are. People want to work with people and brands that they like. Give them the opportunity to decide whether or not they like your brand.

Note: It’s not about convincing them that you’re awesome. It’s about being authentic about who you are and seeing if they genuinely like you and your brand. That way, the working relationship starts off in an authentic way.

What Do You Want

Don’t mince words here. You’re definitely making a request so do it, and do it well. Influencers are used to receiving requests to speak or participate in activities so being direct with your request makes it easier for them to make a decision.

The Event Details

You want to give them as much information as possible so they can check their schedule, the location and map out logistics in their head. This will give them a better idea of whether they can say “YES” or “NO” to the request.

Your Specific Ask

Do you want them to speak for 15 minutes or 1 hour? Will it be a deep dive or high level talk? Will it be workshop style or keynote talk? Do you want time for Q&A?

Giving your potential speaker one sentence about your expectations of them reduces the number of conversations you need to have in the future. They won’t have as many questions for you because you were very clear in your original email.

What’s In It For Them?

OK, I’m not saying you have to say exactly how much money you have to offer in the first email, but you do have to let them know that you want to talk about terms. If you can provide them with a table to sell items, a promotional email to your list of contacts, then say so.

Influencers get a lot of emails with people making requests with no intention on giving anything in return. Don’t be one of those people. Show them that you value their time and effort.

Common Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make

Sending A Mass Email To Several Speakers.

You took time to plan out your event and audience in advance. You can choose the right speakers with the perfect message that will help change your attendees lives. This speaker is in perfect alignment with your audience (because you were careful and strategic in choosing them).

A mass email negates all of that work. An email going to several influencers can never communicate what’s special about that specific person and why they want to speak to your audience like a personal email does.

Not Showing that You’ve Done Your Homework.

This email is the first impression a speaker will have with your brand. You want to show them from your very first sentence that you mean business.

Make sure each email is personalized with the person’s name and company. Let them know why the impact they’ve made through their work is exactly the message your audience needs to receive and why speaking to your audience will benefit them in the long run.

Get straight to the point.

Mention the Who, What, When, Where, and How - and do it fast.

Influencers don’t have a ton of time to figure out what you have going on. They want to get the information, make a decision and go on with their life. Your only job with this email is to make that decision an easy one to make. You do that by giving them all the information they need quickly and concisely.

Getting speakers for a vision board party can seem like a lot of work. If done right, you can create an experience that your audience will remember for the rest of their life. I think that’s well worth the effort.

xoxo

Want To Start Planning Your Vision Board Party? 

1. Download the FREE vision board party planning checklist.

2. Craft your inspiring vision board workshop talk with our FREE High Impact Storytelling Journal Prompts. 

3. Plan, promote & host your first (or next) professional & profitable vision board workshop with our signature course, Sold Out Vision Board Parties.

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This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cyrene is a fun and accomplished workshop facilitator, learning and development guru and Human Resources professional. Being at the helm of Thrive Lounge has been a long-time dream. Through vision board workshops she plans to accomplish two-way learning. Sharing her vast years of knowledge to motivate and encourage others; while simultaneously getting the reward of great energy, ideas and questions to ponder back from each group. A super win-win. Please join our Thrive Lounge community so you too can benefit!

How To Secure Excellent Speakers For Your Vision Board Party: Part 1

A speaker can make or break an event. Trust me, I've been to plenty of events where the speakers who were booked were really bad candidates. If the person you hire does not fit your event profile, then maybe they're not a good fit to begin with. Therefore, before requesting a speaker, make sure you have the event logistics figured out.

Our team spent several weeks prior to VisionCon, our vision board conference, planning out the ideal event. We asked questions like:

• What would the event look like?

• Who is our target audience?

• What do we want their experience to be like?

We then took that information and researched speakers who fit our brand identity and mission. This included researching their followers, collaborations, and published work. 

How To Design Your Event Before Contacting A Speaker

Your event profile should consist of the following (sometimes more depending on the complexity of the event):

• The number of guests you are expecting

• Demographics of attendees

• Budget for speaker (if any, be honest. you'll be surprised)

• What your organization can offer the speaker.

• Event theme

• Event logistics (Date, Time, Location)

• Other guests involved with production, including notable media coverage if any.

• A contract to issue to the speaker once the terms have been negotiated. Both you and the speaker should agree on terms mentioned.

Preparing this information prior to your meeting is essential.

Trust me, if you are dealing with a professional, he/she will ask you these questions in advance. If you're unsure of the event details, most likely the person will not move forward with your request.

Once your research is gathered, the next step is to secure a phone interview. This is the opportunity to get to know your speaker and determine whether or not the person is a good fit.

To get that initial conversation, you have to start off with a compelling email that’ll get a great speaker interested in your event.

The next blog post in this series will walk you through exactly how to do that with a sample template that we used to book our speakers for VisionCon.

xoxo

Want To Start Planning Your Vision Board Party? 

1. Download the FREE vision board party planning checklist.

2. Craft your inspiring vision board workshop talk with our FREE High Impact Storytelling Journal Prompts. 

3. Plan, promote & host your first (or next) professional & profitable vision board workshop with our signature course, Sold Out Vision Board Parties.

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This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cyrene is a fun and accomplished workshop facilitator, learning and development guru and Human Resources professional. Being at the helm of Thrive Lounge has been a long-time dream. Through vision board workshops she plans to accomplish two-way learning. Sharing her vast years of knowledge to motivate and encourage others; while simultaneously getting the reward of great energy, ideas and questions to ponder back from each group. A super win-win. Please join our Thrive Lounge community so you too can benefit!

Top 10 Quotes Guaranteed to Inspire A Kick-Ass Day

Developing a routine is essential in our lives. While I haven’t totally mastered my daily or weekly routine, I am working on trying different strategies to make my day work for me.

One thing I’ve learned for sure is that reading a quote or affirmation daily can be a great asset to anyone’s routine.

Here are some of my favorite life quotes:

1. “If you’re frustrated because you’re not getting what you want, stop for a second: Have you actually flat-out asked for it? If you haven’t, stop complaining. You can’t expect the world to read your mind. You have to put it out there, and sometimes putting it out there is as simple as just saying, “Hey, can I have that?” - Sophia Amoruso

2. "Behind every successful person there are a lot of unsuccessful years. Just wanted to remind you, as we go into a new week, that today's failures may eventually lead to tomorrow triumphs. So, please don't ever downgrade your dreams to match your reality, upgrade your faith to match your destiny!" - Kimberely Stefanski

3. "Failed plans should not be interpreted as a failed vision. Visions don't change, they are only refined. Plans rarely stay the same, and are scrapped or adjusted as needed. Be stubborn about the vision, but flexible with your plan." - John C. Maxwell

4. "You cannot, you cannot use someone else's fire. You can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe that you have it." - Audre Lorde

5. "For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again." - Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

6. "Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life, because you become what you believe." - Oprah Winfrey

7. "Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain

8. Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it by use. – Ruth Gordo

9. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any”.  - Alice Walker

10. Fall seven times and stand up eight. –Japanese Proverb

Want To Start Planning Your Vision Board Party? 

1. Download the FREE vision board party planning checklist.

2. Craft your inspiring vision board workshop talk with our FREE High Impact Storytelling Journal Prompts. 

3. Plan, promote & host your first (or next) professional & profitable vision board workshop with our signature course, Sold Out Vision Board Parties.

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cyrene is a fun and accomplished workshop facilitator, learning and development guru and Human Resources professional. Being at the helm of Thrive Lounge has been a long-time dream. Through vision board workshops she plans to accomplish two-way learning. Sharing her vast years of knowledge to motivate and encourage others; while simultaneously getting the reward of great energy, ideas and questions to ponder back from each group. A super win-win. Please join our Thrive Lounge community so you too can benefit!